LEILA FADEL, HOST:
President Trump is engineering mass deportations. He's also shut down refugee resettlement programs from multiple countries, including Afghanistan, Congo and Syria. But there is one group Trump is welcoming - white South Africans. He's even issued an executive order offering them refugee status. Katya Schwenk, a reporter for the investigative news outlet The Lever, got a look at a memo outlining the Trump administration's plan to help them, and she joins me now. Good morning.
KATYA SCHWENK: Good morning. Thanks for having me.
FADEL: Thank you for being here. Katya, how did you get your eyes on this memo, and what did it say?
SCHWENK: Right? So, you know, we were asking ourselves this question with our reporting - you know, how is the Trump administration even able to resettle these white South Africans in the U.S., as the administration has been saying it's planning to do, amid this refugee resettlement system that has gone into total chaos right now, right? And so we were able to, you know, access an internal memo from the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as speak to, you know, a source in the government who is familiar with what's been going on. And really, finding what we found was sort of the extent to which the Trump administration is sort of deploying this emergency authority and going against typical protocol in order to resettle these Afrikaners.
FADEL: In what way? So, I mean, would it be through the office of the refugee resettlement program?
SCHWENK: Yeah. So the Trump administration plans to use the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is the federal agency that typically handles many different kinds - you know, many refugees that have traditionally entered the United States. But because, you know, these - the nonprofits, faith-based organizations and government contractors that are, you know, typically involved in the resettlement process - many of them have been forced to close their doors amid the Trump administration settling these programs. So what this memo showed that we obtained is that the, you know, OOR is asking for emergency authority in order to sort of directly provide assistance to white South Africans entering the U.S. - is, in fact, using funds that are typically reserved for very high-risk refugees in order to resettle these South Africans.
FADEL: What has the Department of Health and Human Services told you about what you saw?
SCHWENK: Yeah, they didn't answer our questions initially. But after we published our story, they did get back to us and confirmed some of our reporting. You know, they said that these special funds, called the Preferred Communities program, that is typically reserved for, you know, extremely vulnerable refugees - that these funds are, in fact, being tapped by the Trump administration. And, you know, what this memo said was that these white South Africans are scheduled to arrive within days of the memo, which was dated April 30. It's still not yet clear when the first group would arrive, although there's been other reporting that showed their applications are being approved. So, yeah, we'll have to wait and see.
FADEL: And very quickly, if President Trump suspended the Refugee Admissions Program back in January, how would this work with white South Africans - through this emergency power?
SCHWENK: It seems that they are using this emergency authority, yes, to get around this chaos that's come from suspending the program.
FADEL: Katya Schwenk of The Lever, thank you for your reporting and your time.
SCHWENK: Thank you.
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